The Piranha Press Online: Sao Miguel

Last week, Joanne went on a river trip with Pastor Nilton Cordeiro, the supervising pastor in the Santarem base for church-planting in the interior communities. Following is her story.

We spent one hour and fifteen minutes walking on sand that shows the effects of the waves on the river bed, now “dry as a bone.” The community we are entering is Sao Miguel (Saint Michael). It is the dry season (some say a record dry season) – the rivers have receded greatly and creeks and canals dried-up. It has left this community with a source of clean, potable water more than than one and one half hours away. As we walked along, we saw skeletons of crabs and one of a venomous snake, holes in the sand where sting rays had spent the night. This community has a small stream that still has water in it, though it is “landlocked”, with no entrance or exit. Thus, they are able to use their canoes to boat out before reaching the vast wasteland that they have to cross to reach fresh potable water. At the time we wrote this, it was a 15 minute boat trip up the river to the sandy wasteland and then the walk across the sand for 1 hour and 15 minutes. As the dry season continues, the stream continues to fall. The stream is very muddy with stagnant, contaminated water. This makes me so thankful for the water in my home, the water that I can turn on and use anytime. The water I use to take a bath, to get a drink, to wash my dog, to throw at the kids in a water fight, to water plants. Did I mention that we saw many alligators on the banks of the stream as we rode in the boat (ie, as the ladies rode in the boat - the men had to walk as the water level in the stream didn’t allow us to take the 5 men)? The walks can be dangerous because of the snakes and alligators that are on the river’s edge. In fact, one of the men who was with us was stung by a sting ray, which is so painful it literally makes a grown man cry.

But in the midst of this dry, stagnant, contaminated and dangerous land is living water. There are villages throughout this area that are growing their churches - giving the living water of the gospel. It says in John 7:37-38, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me (Jesus) and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Praise the Lord, in this second village we visited, two boys made decisions to ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. The pastor here is a father of three girls. He and his wife oversee 14 churches in their area, and they are seeing growth in the churches. They are offering living water and God is giving it. Many people in these villages have experienced miracles of healing and it has brought them hope and a living faith.